Academic Aesthetic Podcast 58 - Bubblr

My 58th podcast is brought to you by some oatmeal, spring weather, and a glorious sunrise.
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Show Notes:

• Don't always assume that younger kids "won't get it." They can and will surprise you.
• Bubblr is now my favorite Flickr mash-up. Wow, this program is fun. You can see my sample comic here.

Academic Aesthetic Podcast 57 - Disruptive Laptops

My 57th podcast touches on a theory about technology that is gaining strength among educators.
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My school is handing out laptops to teachers, but not everyone's excited. Why? Some say it'll increase our workload.

First things the laptops will most likely be used for:

• Grade Books
• Lesson Planning
• Presentations (PowerPoint) (I hint a bit about good design ideas and free alternatives here, but don't get into it.

So where does this extra work come from? Is it because these teachers see "disruptive" technology heading their way? Maybe, but remember: Disruptive technology isn't always a bad thing. Podcasts and blogs are disruptive, after all. (For more info, see what Wikipedia has to say about disruptive technology.)

It's not the job of those preferring sustaining technology to change. It is our job as educators who prefer the disruptive technology to prove that the change is worth the effort.

Academic Aesthetic Podcast 56 - Surveys

Today my 56th podcast is all about two different survey tools, Zoomerang and Survey Monkey.

I'll go over things in more detail in the podcast, but here's some notes I wrote down when creating my surveys as well as an image of what the survey results look like side by side (click for a larger view):

Zoomerang
Free!
zEducation package for $350/year
login with email account
Free service allows shorter surveys
100 survey responses
see results for 10 days
Sorts templates ... differently. (Business, Community, Social, Education)
Add images by uploading gif or jpg format

SurveyMonkey
Free!
Pro subscription for $19.95/month OR $200/year
login with email account
100 survey responses
Have multiple pages
A variety of themes.
Add images if they're already hosted by someone.
Taunts you with premium features.
Lists competitors

Would you like to take a survey?

I'm looking at different survey services for an upcoming podcast, and I could use some help. I've created two short surveys (less than 10 questions) that are more or less identical, and would appreciate it if you took one or both of them.

Please?

Pretty please?

I'll be your friend...

SurveyMonkey Survey
Zoomerang Survey

GES Podcast 1

My Art Club kids got together and made a podcast! Not all of them were into it for the first episode, but my 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th grade students wrote their own scripts and recorded them using an old iMac (so old it can't run OS X) and Audacity.

The blog service is Class Blogmeister, a wonderful free service provided by David Warlick. To my knowledge Class Blogmeister doesn't host files, but that's what Ourmedia.org and Archive.org are for.

My turn to learn.

I'm getting ready for a really fun day tomorrow.

I know, I know, as an art teacher most of my days are fun, but this one's extra special.

Tomorrow is an inservice day, so to make up for the lack of students the teachers in the Interrelated Arts program are getting together to swap lesson ideas. I'm sure most of them will be bringing in student work, but I don't have the heart to take those things down.

Instead, I'm taking digital pictures. I'f I'm lucky and can get an internet connection in that building I'll show them a Flickr slide show, since I really want to get more art teachers turned on to that service. If not, I'll use my Mac's built in screen saver to do the job.

When we're done there I'll be hopping in my car and driving to Rockville (Mental note: I still need to print directions) for a Maryland DEN event were we'll be learning how to use MovieMaker. I may already know how to use iMovie, but unfortunately most of my buildings are using Windows so I guess I might as well learn Movie Maker also and get some cool lesson ideas while I'm at it.

Academic Aesthetic Podcast 55 - PETEandC 7 of 7

After writing up my summary of the PETE&C DEN event I noticed that it can easily be divided into 7 sections. So, rather than bombard you with a large report I'll post one section a day this week. Short, sweet, bite-size chunks of information work much better for me, and hopefully for you as well.

Again, this is also a podcast.
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End of the day, and in a moment of triumph Steve Dembo showed off the new discoveryeducatornetwork.com website. A lot of work went into this, and it shows. Based on the idea that a website's users are what makes it great, DEN members have a lot of input here. There's a discussion forum, calendar, links to resources, and in all of these DEN members are allowed to contribute.

Not a DEN member yet? Well, why not? Go sign up! Now! It's free, so you don't have that as an excuse.

Academic Aesthetic Podcast 54 - PETEandC 6 of 7

After writing up my summary of the PETE&C DEN event I noticed that it can easily be divided into 7 sections. So, rather than bombard you with a large report I'll post one section a day this week. Short, sweet, bite-size chunks of information work much better for me, and hopefully for you as well.

Again, this is also a podcast.

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My last session of the day was with Hall Davidson again, and he showed how to do multimedia. I already know how to edit video, but like most of the big names in education out there he had a different way of doing it.

Not every school has enough cameras for everyone to make their own movie, but computers today often come with MovieMaker or iMovie installed. Why not make a "pack" of media - pictures, video, and music - on a given topic and have students combine some or all of it to make a movie. There's a lot that can be done using media that are either copyright-free or at the very least under Creative Commons licenses. (My favorite sources for such content are Flickr Creative Commons, YoToPhoto, and Archive.org, but there are plenty of others.

I wish Mr. Davidson had spent more time on Creative Commons rather than just discussing fair use, but then he did a presentation during session 1 on copyrights so he probably talked about it then. He DID show how easy it is to cite references, which is of course something we should al be doing.

The notes for this session were provided as handouts, but he also had them saved as Word documents. Anyone with a thumb drive was able to come up and get a digital copy if they wanted it.

Academic Aesthetic Podcast 53 - PETEandC 5 of 7

After writing up my summary of the PETE&C DEN event I noticed that it can easily be divided into 7 sections. So, rather than bombard you with a large report I'll post one section a day this week. Short, sweet, bite-size chunks of information work much better for me, and hopefully for you as well.

Again, this is also a podcast.

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For the 2nd breakout session I went to see a presentation on Google Earth and unitedstreaming, run by none other than Lance Rougeux (the guy who planned the whole PETE&C DEN event). I went into this with a bit of skepticism since I wasn't sure if Google Earth had a Mac version, but a teacher at another table downloaded and installed the Mac app during the presentation so I really perked up after that.

Google Earth has some great visuals and looks at the altitude above sea level to make the maps 3D - honestly, the Grand Canyon looks awesome. You can also insert images on top of the map to turn them into great social studies lessons. Lance used unitedstreaming pictures of course, but an image is an image.

I think the best feature is Google Earth's support of html code. I can insert pictures hosted on Flickr by using the codes they provide, and then everyone who loads my map file will see the same image.

When I had Art Club later on that week I showed Google Earth to some of my kids and they didn't want to stop playing with it.

Academic Aesthetic Podcast 52 - PETEandC 4 of 7

After writing up my summary of the PETE&C DEN event I noticed that it can easily be divided into 7 sections. So, rather than bombard you with a large report I'll post one section a day this week. Short, sweet, bite-size chunks of information work much better for me, and hopefully for you as well.

Again, this is also a podcast.

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During lunch Hall Davidson showed us some great videos that were made by students - some of them younger than one might expect. Our kids are for the most part digital natives and are capable of doing a lot more than our curriculum gives them credit for. I constantly hear about raising standards for math, raising standards for reading, and so on, but I don't often hear about raising the standards for technology.

Is it perhaps because so many of our teachers are afraid of what technology can do?

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(At one point in this podcast I say "education" when I meant to say "technology." See if you can find it.)